Ep.207: Nate Bradley, CCIA & Steph Sherer, ASA

Ep.207: Nate Bradley, CCIA & Steph Sherer, ASA

Nate Bradley joins us for a conversation on all things CCIA and by extension, Prop 64. He discusses founding the Association and it’s nascent days. Nate takes us through the fact that just a year prior to it’s passage, the CCIA board voted to endorse Prop 64 and how for the ensuing twelve months, Nate didn’t stop working to get Prop 64 passed. We also dive into Nate’s history in law enforcement and how as a former member of those who protect and serve, he has a unique vantage point on potential solutions for community peacekeeping. But Steph Sherer first joins us to discuss ASA’s petition filed with the DOJ demanding that the DEA correct misinformation about cannabis.

Transcript:

Speaker 2: Nate Bradley and Steph Sheer. Nate Bradley joins us for a conversation on all things and by extension prop 64, he discussed his founding, the association and it's nation days. That takes us through the fact that just a year prior to its passage, the CCA board voted to endorse prop 64 and how for the ensuing 12 months and eight didn't stop working to get prop 64 passed. We also dive into nate's history in law enforcement and how as a former member of those who protect and serve, he has a unique vantage point on potential solutions for community peacekeeping. But steph sherer first joins us to discuss ages, petition filed with the Department of Justice demanding that the dea correct misinformation about cannabis. Welcome to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the Hammock can economy. That's two ends in the word economy. Nate Bradley proceeded by Steph Sheer.

Speaker 4: I got a little bit of almond milk.

Speaker 1: Okay. And, um, so we started to talk about espresso. I mean that's the power play of coffee, you know?

Speaker 4: Yes. I like to pack a lot into a little, a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. And, and so when folks look at, at, at Acep, we know how much you've done in the past, uh, you know, it's not a large staff. So kind of that a powerful punch coming from not so many people. Um, you and I are talking today because you filed a petition with the doj demanding that the dea correct misinformation about cannabis so that, you know, makes me feel good that we've got you steph on the front lines. So thanks for us once again to talk about this.

Speaker 4: Well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: You got it. All right. So steph sheer, what is this misinformation? Take us through it.

Speaker 4: Alright, so the DTA actually issues to publications where they educate the public and Congress about marijuana. One of those documents is called the dangers and consequences of marijuana abuse and the other is called drugs of abuse. And these two publications, they disseminate through their website and they're often quoted by members of Congress, why they should vote against medical cannabis policy.

Speaker 1: Right. It's coming from the dea, the dea says,

Speaker 4: correct. Yeah. And so our organization, you know, we were tracking all of the changes that were happening throughout the different federal agencies under Obama. And we found that literally every federal agency and administration had had some kind of evolution on their position of marijuana except for surprisingly the dea. And so we were actually in a process of filing a petition against the dea publications asking them to correct information when the dea issued their denial of petition to initiate proceedings to reschedule marijuana. That was, that was basically the report that told the governor of Washington and Rhode Island why they were not going to move forward with rescheduling marijuana.

Speaker 1: Right. And we all remember that it did come with the fact that, uh, hey, you know, if you want to research it, you're going to have to jump through a few hoops, but we're opening up that Blaine. Uh, but yes, they did not reorder dea schedule.

Speaker 4: Correct. But in that document, they actually conceded to quite a few points that I'm around the safety of cannabis that actually contradicted their own word. So when we did an analysis of their denial, we actually issued a report, um, about a week later called the DA's denial of existing medical cannabis research. And in it we made recommendations to the Department of Justice and the dea saying that they should at least update some of the information that they're disseminating because the wood, you know, the information they put forward and the rescheduling denial contradicted that information. And so we issued that report and sent it to the dea and Department of Justice and I noticed a big surprise, but they didn't change the information.

Speaker 2: Nate Bradley and Steph Sheer. Nate Bradley joins us for a conversation on all things and by extension prop 64, he discussed his founding, the association and it's nation days. That takes us through the fact that just a year prior to its passage, the CCA board voted to endorse prop 64 and how for the ensuing 12 months and eight didn't stop working to get prop 64 passed. We also dive into nate's history in law enforcement and how as a former member of those who protect and serve, he has a unique vantage point on potential solutions for community peacekeeping. But steph sherer first joins us to discuss ages, petition filed with the Department of Justice demanding that the dea correct misinformation about cannabis. Welcome to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the Hammock can economy. That's two ends in the word economy. Nate Bradley proceeded by Steph Sheer.

Speaker 4: I got a little bit of almond milk.

Speaker 1: Okay. And, um, so we started to talk about espresso. I mean that's the power play of coffee, you know?

Speaker 4: Yes. I like to pack a lot into a little, a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. And, and so when folks look at, at, at Acep, we know how much you've done in the past, uh, you know, it's not a large staff. So kind of that a powerful punch coming from not so many people. Um, you and I are talking today because you filed a petition with the doj demanding that the dea correct misinformation about cannabis so that, you know, makes me feel good that we've got you steph on the front lines. So thanks for us once again to talk about this.

Speaker 4: Well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: You got it. All right. So steph sheer, what is this misinformation? Take us through it.

Speaker 4: Alright, so the DTA actually issues to publications where they educate the public and Congress about marijuana. One of those documents is called the dangers and consequences of marijuana abuse and the other is called drugs of abuse. And these two publications, they disseminate through their website and they're often quoted by members of Congress, why they should vote against medical cannabis policy.

Speaker 1: Right. It's coming from the dea, the dea says,

Speaker 4: correct. Yeah. And so our organization, you know, we were tracking all of the changes that were happening throughout the different federal agencies under Obama. And we found that literally every federal agency and administration had had some kind of evolution on their position of marijuana except for surprisingly the dea. And so we were actually in a process of filing a petition against the dea publications asking them to correct information when the dea issued their denial of petition to initiate proceedings to reschedule marijuana. That was, that was basically the report that told the governor of Washington and Rhode Island why they were not going to move forward with rescheduling marijuana.

Speaker 1: Right. And we all remember that it did come with the fact that, uh, hey, you know, if you want to research it, you're going to have to jump through a few hoops, but we're opening up that Blaine. Uh, but yes, they did not reorder dea schedule.

Speaker 4: Correct. But in that document, they actually conceded to quite a few points that I'm around the safety of cannabis that actually contradicted their own word. So when we did an analysis of their denial, we actually issued a report, um, about a week later called the DA's denial of existing medical cannabis research. And in it we made recommendations to the Department of Justice and the dea saying that they should at least update some of the information that they're disseminating because the wood, you know, the information they put forward and the rescheduling denial contradicted that information. And so we issued that report and sent it to the dea and Department of Justice and I noticed a big surprise, but they didn't change the information.

Speaker 4: And so, uh, we decided to take advantage of a, of an administrative tool called the information quality act or the data quality act, which is actually, it was an amendment to the paper reduction act that was passed in 1994. And basically what this did is it established an administrative mechanism that allows effective persons to seek, um, corrections of information that's disseminated by federal agencies. So before the Icu Wade was passed in 1994, there was no way that a private citizen could go through a process to formally request change of information at, um, with a, with a federal agency. And so this is a formal procedure. Every administrative agency has a infor information quality act process and what you do is you go through and you find the information that you want changed, you supply them with the information of how it should be changed and then you explain why that information is harming you. And so what we did is we found some pretty significant areas of, of, um, of contradiction within the DA's own word. So actually our petition, we're not even bringing in, we're just asking them to update, um, the dangers and consequences of marijuana abuse and drugs of abuse with their own words. And we found 25 violations in those documents. Wow. Twenty five. So, um, the areas that we're asking them to correct or based, they basically said that the gateway theory is bs

Speaker 1: necessarily an industry term bs is it?

Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a very popular Washington DC. So they found that, um, that there's no evidence to show that there's longterm brain damage caused by marijuana use and that there's, there's no research backing up the fact that cannabis causes psychosis or lung cancer.

Speaker 1: I took, this is literally what you're telling me and what I'm hearing is that this reefer madness thing from 80 years ago still is public policy written policy even though, you know, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, um, the dea contradicts that. They, so they've come to the light as far as, you know, obviously these crazy things that we used to say aren't true, but that still is the stated policy on the site. Is that fair?

Speaker 4: That's correct. That's correct. So for our members, and probably for a lot of your listeners know, this information is used by Congress, um, you know, as, as an excuse not to vote for medical cannabis legislation. So part of our petition was not only going in and finding all of the contradicted statement, but we also did a full search of congressional record and found, um, representatives like Fleming from Louisiana or wolf from Virginia Harris from Maryland, senators Graham find signed Grassley's. And very importantly, it's going to be important person senator sessions have all cited the dea and this information and talked about the gateway theory, talked about longterm brain damage because this as a reason to block our legislation. And so maybe you know, just the, there is a possibility that maybe our opponents are only our opponent because they've been given that information by the dea.

Speaker 1: Well, let's hope that's, that's absolutely a, you know, a glimmer of hope. What I find fascinating though, we, I think we, you and I talked about this last time, Dianne Feinstein's name is within those other names. It just killed, continues to shock me. Um, all right. So, uh, you know, best case scenario, these folks that have been citing the information that they have simply citing information that they have, let's give them the right information or correct information. Um, so where are we as far as this petition is concerned?

Speaker 4: Great. So this petition has been filed and Obama has the, he can before he leaves office, he can grant us this petition and so we are going to be starting some petitions asking people to call the White House and ask Obama to grant the petition because I think more importantly than anything right now, we know from his own testimony that senator sessions, who is going to be possibly our next attorney general did he listens to the dea. Right? And he said time and time again and, and public testimony that he looks to the dea for advice on marijuana. Right? So the, so exactly. So what we need, what we need Obama to do before he leaves office is to set the record straight with, with the DEA. There should be no dialogue here. This is the dea, his own words. They just need to update their current publications. And this will mean that we'll start with the next administration, at least in a space where we're reefer madness has now been trumped by science.

Speaker 1: Okay. Interesting choice of words there in that last sentence. Um, as far as um, uh, the petition is concerned as far as getting him to do this. What if folks do right now, as soon as they hear this, they pause what they're listening to when they go,

Speaker 4: they can call the White House, they can go to a safe access now.org/icu and there's instructions of everything that you can do to help, uh, get Obama to grant petition. So we were going to ask people to do is sign petitions were going to ask them to call the White House and we're going to ask them to write letters to the editor because this is one thing that we can absolutely get done before the new administration comes in.

Speaker 1: Okay. So go to the website before you call a. you've got the numbers there and everything.

Speaker 4: Everything will be there.

Speaker 1: Okay. One more time on the website.

Speaker 4: It's safe access now. Dot Org front slash I q, a.

Speaker 1: okay. And if I'm a person that is interested in helping out, I just don't have the time to sign this petition or phone the White House, but I'd love to donate. I'm sure there's a way to do that, right?

Speaker 4: Yeah. There's lots of ways you can do that. The easiest way to do that is to go to our website safe access now.org and press the donate button.

Speaker 1: Okay? And, uh, a dollar up. Anything will do,

Speaker 4: anything will do. There you go. This is hard work and we're, we're excited to be here in DC representing patient, making sure that we're looking at, uh, at every opportunity to, to move medical cannabis forward and create foundational change.

Speaker 1: There you go. As far as the timeline is concerned, obviously, you know, inauguration day is January 20th, you know, is there a tighter deadline then that? I'm sure there is. When would you like most of this activity to occur? What's the deadline? We can give listeners

Speaker 4: if everyone could make these calls before January 10th, that would be great. On January 10th, we're going to. Congress is going to start a confirmation hearings, uh, attorney general sessions.

Speaker 1: Okay. So, uh, before January 10th, that would be great. Now would be better safe access now, right? Correct. Steps year. Thank you so much for the work that you do. I mean, come on, this is a big deal. Um, and if we can get this done, it's huge.

Speaker 4: Thank you. So now it's amazing. I mean, I just, you know, if we're successful in getting this petition granted, it will mean that uh, our opponents can no longer say site the gateway theory. I'm longterm brain damage or lung cancer or psychosis as a reason not to, uh, to support medical cannabis legislation.

Speaker 1: Right? And all of those things aren't true anyway. So, uh, what's great is that we have facts on our side

Speaker 4: and yes, it's going to be more important than ever under the next administration.

Speaker 1: Of course that goes without saying, but I'm happy that you said it. I'm Steph, you know that we asked for a soundtrack song for the soundtrack of your life, either a relevant today or just a song that you like. Would you like to share maybe a soundtrack song

Speaker 4: today? Um, as I was reading over at new new information put out by the dea can concerning a marijuana extract and getting ready to put out statements on that on my way. And I was listening to a icu bed down.

Speaker 1: Oh Wow. Look at you.

Speaker 4: So my, my fighting pants on.

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. That's an original member of Nwa that goes without saying. All right Steph, sheer get back to work. Thank you so much for uh, joining us. And um, we will go to the website, we will call the White House and we will support you. Sounds great. Thanks so much for. This episode is supported

Speaker 2: by Focus. Focus is working on independent and international standards while offering third party certification for cannabis businesses. Foundation of cannabis unified standards helps build your business into the best it can be. Focused is not a regulatory agency so they don't engage in enforcement. Rather the organization has in place to help improve operational efficiencies, decrease operating expenses, and ultimately increased profit focus will help you build your business in a sustainable way, guarding against risk and liability. All while protecting your ip go to focus standard stop or. But I mean, but do you mind nate? Do you mind talking about prop 64? No, it's, I've been doing it for about a year. That's the one you saw us. You know, I was just asked down downstairs. Yeah.

Speaker 5: You know, how, how's, how's everything had on. I realized it's been a year ago that we were organizing the votes on our board to come out and endorse prop 64. It's been exactly a year. And, and in that last 365 days, I haven't stopped. I said, I mean, amy knows this. I'm amy, our lobbyist, which I'm sure she, uh, we were, I think we hit a record, um, eight or seven flights in eight days last month at one. Oh my God. Yeah. It was from Sacramento to where I was in stake. It was all about the campaign, but it was um, orange county in the morning, floto flight at Oakland by noon, then fly back to long beach that night for meetings in Long Beach. Crazy. Just that was just one day A. Oh my goodness. That's remarkable. All right, so 365 days. What are your lessons learned? Right on prop 64.

Speaker 5: What are your lessons learned on this whole process? Um, the, well, I mean there's been a lot of lessons learns. I would say even I would say it's more like what, what, what were the lessons learned in prop 19, 2010. So do then fine because I was a spokesman on prop 19 and there was a lot, did not pass, of course, right. Did Not Pass. And so this was a big deal for me as well. One of the people who work harder, harder, hard on that bill. And I think the, a lot of the lessons of prop 19 was that, you know, there are three elements you need for a cannabis initiative to work. You know, you need a bill, you need the paperwork for the writing on the paper, which is whatever. Everybody obsesses on that one part. Of course reality is. So you have to have the other parts, you have to have the money needed, the millions and millions of dollars needed and you have to have a coalition that, that you're working with.

Speaker 5: So it can't just be you because California's a big state, it's actually got like 10 little states, you know, inside of one big state. It's its own, you know, it's the sixth largest economy in the world. And so what a prop 64 did was it brought in all those. Those are all three. No one prompt. My team didn't have all three. They had, they had the initiative that didn't have a huge coalition, had a smaller coalition but not when needed to get it done. Prop 64, but brought, brought together a coalition of non cannabis organizations that we've never seen before. Talk about the coalition because that I think was, you know. Yes, of course there's the other two tent poles, but that was the big one. That's where everything changed, right? Yeah. When, when, when the California Medical Association came out, the California Nurses Association, you had the, you know, when you had all the addiction treatment groups cook coming out in full support of prop 64.

Speaker 5: That was huge, you know, when, when, when the doctors, which are one of the people we have to trust the most are the ones saying it's time to get this done. You know, prohibition is a failed policy because that's what they realize is that any person who spends more than two minutes out out in the open realizes that in, in, in any, in any high school is that um, you know, it's sold directly there. And so the question is, it is a public health problem. The doctors recognize that and just said, why? Why do we want it sold directly to kids who else from outside of the industry did. We did a lot of environmental groups. Obviously things like acu is on board, you know, things like that. Sure. But what we saw, we saw a lot. We saw individual law enforcement come out this time.

Speaker 5: What was really important was, wasn't who necessarily came out and supported it, but what, who didn't oppose it, such a lot of people as the California League of the California League of cities, California State Association of counties, the rural counties association or the, you know, the, the association that represents rural counties. What happened was that a lot of these groups stayed neutral, which is a lot of ways than giving it basically a thumbs up when they can't. Um, another, another thing was kind of funny. It's like law enforcement, you know, poor ACC is. This is the association that represents the, uh, most law enforcement officers in the state. It's represents about 30,000 cops and they have the most money out of all the law enforcement groups. And uh, they did oppose it, but when the opposition campaign came knocking on their door, because pork has millions of dollars short in their packs that they can spend on campaigns.

Speaker 5: And um, it was funny. Poor Act gave them $5,000. That's not a lot of. They asked for $500,000 and sort of as a, and you can check. It's all, it's all, it's all a public, all public record. But uh, yeah, they, they, they gave him kind of acute $5,000 and so that, that was a sign, right? Kind of writing on the wall. That was a huge sign up there. Yeah. What about, uh, the other side? What about the growers? The growers? Well, I mean it wasn't, there was a lot of media and press around. The other growers are opposing it. It just wasn't accurate. There was a group of growers that were, but there were plenty of growers that didn't. I mean our entire CCI ag are Agora. Are the, the agricultural subcommittee of CCA voted unit you unanimously to support prop 64. Look at that.

Speaker 5: I mean we've, we have, we have guys like Tim Blake from the Emerald Cup. We have gotten, you know kristen all we know the founder of the Emerald Grower's association who's helped draft cultivation policies and like 16 states. We've got some very well respected old school farmers that came out in strong support of 64. But unfortunately, the press sort of picked up on the what, what, what got headlines and ran with that. And so it, it, it was, it was a narrative that was created but wasn't really accurate. I mean, look at, if you look at the final vote, the vote results. Yes. Two thousand 10. It lost in all the Emerald Emerald. All the Emerald Triangle counties. Two thousand 16 that blew it away every in will county in Emerald Triangle County voted to pass prop 64. So. So that will definitely tell you something. Yeah. However, in our, a wonderful industry where um, folks tend to have an opinion, uh, we, we kind of had three groups, right?

Speaker 5: You had a supporters, you had folks that were supporting it. Bod, I don't love the language. And then you did have, you know, folks that didn't support it. Obviously it passed. So for getting people that didn't support it, actually no, no speaking to people that don't know. Yeah. But people speaking to people that didn't support it. And for those folks who weren't in love with the language, how much work is still needs to happen on prop 64? Is it? We are. We're under no illusion that somehow the work's been done. The whole reason I started an industry association in the first place four years ago was because I realized I looked at, I looked at the plain field and realized who's going to be there to make sure the rules actually get written, right? You know, you see these nonprofits come in and they'll dump money to pass an initiative and then they leave.

Speaker 5: And there was nobody there. There was literally, as I like to say, when I organized in an empty parking space for a trade association at the state capital, nobody was doing it. So CCI, we found it and I actually founded it by google searching. How do you start a trade association? About four and half years ago. So, uh, I appreciate the fact that you did that Google search tell folks that again are on, in either of those two camps or are in that third camp of supporting it. And now I actually want to make sure that I know what is the written law, how can they help you or just themselves get their point across, what is, what do you know the, the, the x's and o's of what needs to be done. If people have an opinion on how they want the rules to look, the state's been phenomenal about doing our outreach.

Speaker 5: They just, I mean we just got done taking part in a month long set of stakeholder meetings with the bureau, uh, that writing the rules and regulations and tech. And they had actually requested CCA attend every single one of those meetings to just help out. They're going to do a lot of that. Again, we might not see the same size because they've already done a lot of the foundation work because the mcrs and prop 64 will work. You know, it was designed to work hand in hand. So you're not going to have to Redo a lot of the work, but there will be public, there will be public commentary. There still will be outreach. And all I could say is go to the websites you go to first, go to our website. Sure. The California cannabis or cannabis industry.org. Okay. And then still dominate there if we want it, you can donate there.

Speaker 5: But also we've got links to all the different state websites that we have resources so people can see when the hearings are, when so they could actually come out and make sure that their voice is heard. Excellent. All right. So that, I mean that website is, is my resource is my. Yeah. Say it again. It's c a cannabis industry.org. Okay. So Wednesday happened, I would imagine, you know, the day after election day you maybe slept in, you know, you didn't. The day after day after election day. It was brutal. It was brutal. I was, I was exhausted. Well, what'd you do? A press conference had a press conference that had to be on the flight down to La. Why? Why meetings? We have meetings immediately. I mean, and plus I was on press. I had it press calls every 15 minutes. So were you. So you still haven't taken a break?

Speaker 5: No. Okay. I might take one next month. You might take one next month meeting December because Sombra. Yeah. Podcast. So who knows when people are for 2016 is when you'll take a break after the uh, after prop 64 passed. Okay, fine. Um, so when you take a break, that's great. Um, as far as you know, having action, getting action and making things happen, you, you told folks how they can get involved, give us a sense of the timeline that you expect for 64. Well, right now the initiative mandates that they start issuing licenses on January first 2018. We don't know if that's gonna actually happen right now. There's some shit that's bullish. There's some shakeups yeah, there's some fish jacobs at the bureau so people moved so we might see some legislation run to allow them to extend that date out. Okay. Um, so that's kind of the general timeline.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Uh, you mentioned EMC, Rsa and prop 64 a are meant to work together. Uh, there are of course, um, counterintuitive language in, in each of those. Uh, so how are they going to work together if a part's actually disagree with one another? There's a, what's going to have to happen is you're going to see the governor's office most likely is going to form a task force to look at, you know, to call and all the stakeholders to look at reconciling the two bills. What we'd like to see as we'd like to see the EMC RSA reconciled to match prop 64 because we're much more comfortable with a lot of the licensing and regulations and prop 64 was an open market. It does not designed to restrict the industry one bit. And so that's what we'd like to see. But there's gonna be a fight because you could see a lot of, I mean literally while we were meeting in our, our, our, with our, as we call our, our, our, uh, cannabis caucus with all the lobbyists working for cannabis clients that are members of CCA.

Speaker 5: Sure. Um, there was across town right then and there, the teamsters and a few other groups were meeting to talk about how they could force the independent distribution model back into the prop 64, which is exactly right. So, um, that's that, that that's going on as well. So it's not an easy road. It's going to be a fight. But, uh, thankfully the injury, the industry is growing by leaps and bounds, which means the association has grown as well. There you go. So obviously, you know, through this dialogue people are learning that Nate Bradley is the right guy for the job. So that's. But uh, you know, we started this whole thing by a google search. So what, what were you doing before? How I was, uh, I wasn't law enforcement. I was a cop for about six and a half years and I got laid off during the budget cuts in 2009 and I got my card within about two weeks because it helped me get off at nine prescription pills a day I was taking and I, um, it changed my life drastically.

Speaker 5: And my parents were at were activists growing up, other right wing, right wing, homeschooled pastor's kid, oldest to six and, but my parents were always involved and so that got me involved. And so that's what I did. I just saw that there was something that needed to be worked on. I got involved, I found Americans for safe access. Got involved with them for another groups, like normal found them. You didn't, you weren't among the founders? No. No, no. Sure. Yeah. No, I found. So you found them online. She would love that. I founded that too.

Speaker 5: I also found a normal, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm. Okay. Fair enough. Can we talk about law enforcement for a second because the only other, uh, person from law enforcement that we've ever spoken to is Neil Franklin. So, you know, um, what, what are these people dealing with? Because what I learned from Neil is that we train law enforcement a certain way. That's one issue and we give them way too much to do. Um, that's the problem is, is yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll expand a little bit more on the, on the other part, the tracking part or the second. Second part is they do. The problem is the government tends to look at law enforcement as the people to handle the stuff that they don't know how to handle. So you have a problem. Let's just ban it and let the cops deal with it.

Speaker 5: Let's just ban it. Let's just ban that which is banned. Now, oh, we don't like this. Let's just ban this. Give it to local law enforcement. Make the cops just make it illegal and if it's illegal, we don't have to deal with it. The problem is, is that policy, that sort of policy, that doesn't work. You know when you prohibit something, all you do is you relegate the market to an underground market where they don't check ids, they don't do testing. They instead of going to court, when they have a business dispute, they pull out a gun and shoot people in the head, right? So it's a much different market. You relegate it to you don't actually get rid of it and that's what people need to know that and that's. And that's. And that's what's key and you know, in most of this that.

Speaker 5: So me, the police officer, I'm doing way too much. Yes. I'm also policing. Yeah. It's a public trust that I shouldn't be the issue. It's a public health issue. It's, it's, you know, I shouldn't have anything to do with this. This should have been dealt with up there or over there. Yeah. Not with me. And if you look at other countries, especially in Europe, they seem a lot, a lot of benefits by treating all drugs as more of a public health issue, a public safety issue. Anything else that you would add as far as from a police person, from a, uh, from a, you know, a law enforcement perspective? Well, the reality is, is it's changing. I mean, I, I mean, it, it, just, the conversations and briefing rooms from my old buddies who called me the conversations, we're no longer, you know, should this be legal or not?

Speaker 5: It's are we, are we going to get the smoke weed when it's legal and those are the other, the, those are the debates. Yeah. And I don't want to go to any place that we shouldn't. But what about the bigger stuff? You know, the, the, there is an issue with attention, uh, between law enforcement and um, you know, a community. Well, the war on drugs has played a large part in that. Of course it has. Yeah, I mean, I mean I used to have to take dad's out of their houses. I mean I've been. When you walk, when you walk a bat out of his house with his two daughters crying because she tested, did he, he was on probation and tested dirty so that they decided to violate them, to put them away for the full five years that leave, that leaves a mark on a family.

Speaker 5: Not only that, but now that mom's going to go on public assistance, so now we're paying for it twofold. And then. But then when you have, as a generation that grows up Haiti, law enforcement, all law enforcement did was take their dad's out of their house when they weren't doing. I mean, I'll never. I mean, yeah, so, and that's, that's, that's led to a large part of this distrust because they are not actually protecting people. They're, they're, they're destroying families and lives with enforcing these rules. If we take out, we're taking away the war on drugs, we're doing our part of that. What else can be taken off of the kind of list of things that I have to do everyday from a law enforcement perspective? Well, things, I mean, it's different. Every agency is different. They all give them different tasks and stuff. But that does take a lot of time.

Speaker 5: Um, another thing that's not as much, I would say a task that can be taken away, but another tool is asset forfeiture reform needs to happen. How so? Their ability to just take your stuff, send it to the feds that's take 20 percent cut and send you the 80 percent back. It's, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's thievery. And that's what it is. And so once we, if we can calm that tool down and really put some restrictions on it so it's not so easy for them just to go back and scoop up everyone's bank accounts and take the kids savings out of his, you know, his, his piggy bank, which they do. Yeah. Um, you'd see a lot less. You'd see them, you know, ut a lot less rates, you see a lot less stuff because a lot of the times they just do it. Looking for things to seize. Yeah. And it would change my mentality as well, what I'm in control of and what I'm not in control of. And that would change the relationship that I have with the community maybe. Yup. Thank you for letting me talk to you about law enforcement. Moving on, here we are, uh, in, in uh, December of 2016. We're trying to get everything passed by January first 2018, you know, maybe it'll be a little bit longer than that.

Speaker 5: As as goes California. So goes the nation. So how aware are you of the fact that everybody that doesn't have, you know, kind of straight up and down regulations, which is Colorado in Canada is looking on you. I mean like heavy shoulders man. Yeah, right. Well thank you for that. No, not everybody know that. Of course I know it is. It's going to be a crazy ride and it really is. Um, and everyone is looking at us and that's why we really modeled prop 64 after what Adam mistakes, you know, lessons learned, learned another states. Edibles were huge one, I mean prop 64 is over is say it's overly and overly restrictive. Bill and it kind of had to be because this is a gray market, it is coming out of the wild west and so you got to put a few more controls in there to make sure things do, do go smoothly.

Speaker 5: What can we do to help besides get involved besides go to the website and look at the links. Literally what a nine and obviously give money, but you know what from the community, from folks that support the initiative, the or, or one change in it, what's the best thing to do? Well, number one, coming out the closet, you know, if you're in the closet, come out as a cannabis consumer now because that's what wins hearts and minds. If you're concerned about the regulations and the rules, get involved. Should join. Join an association, get involved in their working groups. We have eight different membership sub sub committees at CCA. They all work in. One works on manufacturing, one works on distribution when they all work to develop policy, you know, suggested policies, white papers, things like that. For us to give regulators to help them write the rules and if you're somebody that wants to have their voice heard, I definitely say get involved and do that.

Speaker 5: Don't just send us a check. Get involved. You know, CCI is a member driven organization. We need your feet, hearts and minds. Three final questions. I'll tell you what they are and then I'll ask you them in order. What has most surprised you in cannabis? What has most surprised you in life and on the soundtrack of nate Bradley's life named one track, one song that's got to be on there. But first things first, what has most surprised you in cannabis? I'm just in the movement as a whole. Sure. How, how benign it is as a whole plant. It's a plant and, and, and, and how literally it could be regular, like anything else. There's nothing crazy about it, but the more I learn about it, the more I learned just how basic it is and how it works with everything and that it isn't this my endoccanabinoid system, et cetera.

Speaker 5: Right. So, so that's it. Uh, what has most surprised you in life? Um, people's ability to backstab as I, I am in the world of politics. I, I took a lot of dirt showers when I was a cop. Stuff you'd see. Yeah. You work in politics for years. I've, I've broken that barrier 50 times with what I've seen people do their people. I am not, I am still surprised to this day, the stuff I've seen done to me and my son and my coat, my, you know, some of my, the people I work with. Well, I listen, I'm behind you. I'm without a knife. Yeah, exactly. I'm also going from law enforcement to politics. What would be the next will be the third point on that, uh, we don't even want. I'm not even, I'm still building this on the soundtrack of your life. One track, one song that's got to be on there.

Speaker 5: The one I would say that I, I listened to the most is a fuck authority by a pretty wise. I listened to it anyway by, by, uh, by, uh, yeah. And I listened to the punk song and more than one occasion when I'm walking over to the capital, the lobby, I will put that song on and listen to it. What's so amazing about that is that you're literally on your way with your feet to speak to authority and it gets you in the right mindset. Their guitarist, I once I saw them play a do it live and he screamed about, you know, before they played that song, you know, to screen to the crowd. It's just random concert to legalize marijuana and fuck thorny and robin blood ever since that day, I'm like, that's my song for my walk over to the state capital. He literally told you it was nate Bradley. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Uh, this time and the time that you've put in really can't thank you enough. Appreciate it man. All right. And there you have nate Bradley

Speaker 2: and earlier on, Steph sheer two luminaries in cannabis in getting stuff done in their respective territories. Nate California, Steph, the United States of America. Very much appreciate your time. Very much. Appreciate your time. Thanks so much for listening. Let me know what you think. Engage at [inaudible] economy.com.

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